How did we get them?
May 19, 2009 (Tuesday)
English must be a baffling language to people who are trying to learn it for the first time. For instance, I looked up “trouble” and “shoot” this morning and found more than 50 ways to use the word, “trouble,” and over 220 usages of “shoot.” The word I was looking for was “troubleshooter.” I found out that the original words were “trouble hunter,” describing a person who worked on the telegraph and telephone lines of the late 19th century. Around 1905, the designation was changed to “trouble shooter.” I don’t know why the word “shoot” was chosen. If you know, please email me with the answer.
“Troubleshoot” simply means to find out what’s wrong with something, and, hopefully, to fix it. The word has been incorporated into computer programs so that the user can find out why a program or a piece of equipment is not functioning properly. Many times the “troubleshooter” program can repair the problem all by itself.
If you like to look online into the meanings of words, then you might like to try these sites:
http://dictionary.reference.com/
http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?l=a
If it’s more than a word you are looking for, the online, ever-evolving user-edited “Wikipedia” is a growing resource:
http://www.wikipedia.org/
Of course, there are many more such sites. These are the ones I’ve found easy to use.